El poder musical de 'Prometeo', de Luigi Nono, llega al Monumental
ROSANA TORRES EL PAIS
Madrid 3 JUN 2003
Prometeo, última obra de Luigi Nono, considerada como una las óperas del siglo XX que ha abierto nuevos horizontes a la hora de crear y entender la música, se representará hoy y mañana en el teatro Monumental de Madrid, dentro del ciclo Música Hoy, que organiza Xavier Güell y patrocina EL PAÍS.
Una vez más, André Richard es responsable de la concepción espacial, de la coordinación artístico y de la dirección del coro, como siempre ha ocurrido desde que esta obra se estrenara en 1984 en Venecia y se reescribiera por el propio Nono en 1985, para su estreno en La Scala de Milán, cuando la dirigió musicalmente Claudio Abbado.
En esta ocasión, Prometeo cuenta con Arturo Tamayo como director musical, que también se había enfrentado a esta pieza en Italia, e Ignacio de Paz como segundo director, ya que estamos ante una pieza en la que sus distintas orquestas a veces están en dos tempos distintos. Estas orquestas son Proyecto Guerrero, la Joven Orquesta de la Generalitat Valenciana, los Percusionistas de Orquesta de RTVE, la Freiburger Solistenchor y Experimentalstudio de Friburgo. Junto a ellos, y como músicos solistas, están Roberto Fabriciani, flauta; Ciro Scarponi, clarinete contrabajo; Klaus Bürger, tuba y eufonium, y Stefano Scodanibbio, contrabajo. Además, intervienen dos sopranos, dos contraltos, un tenor y dos actores recitadores.
Concierto espacial
"Estuvimos viendo numerosos espacios en Madrid para representar Prometeo y finalmente estamos en el Monumental", señala Richard, quien utiliza en este coliseo no sólo el escenario, sino también parte del patio de butacas, del primer piso y del segundo. "Éste es un concierto espacial en el que se puede ver como un problema el que existe la partitura de Nono y cada vez hay que adaptarla al lugar donde se vaya a representar".
Además de adaptar el espacio, los cuatro grupos musicales que intervienen reproducen las formaciones de la orquesta de Monteverdi, que se ensamblan con los cinco grupos de solistas y las campanas de cristal que se utilizan en el concierto. Pero éstas no son las únicas fuentes de sonido ya que Prometeo cuenta con 22 fuentes musicales que surgen de distintos ámbitos dentro del coliseo. "Todo ocurre como si fuera una performance", dice Richard, quien deja claro que el sonido que emana a través de aparatos electrónicos y altavoces en ningún caso está grabado, ya que se transforma en el momento.
La práctica totalidad de las personas que intervienen en el montaje, algunas de las cuales, como Fabriciani o Scarponi, son primeras figuras mundiales, han trabajado tradicionalmente en esta ópera en muchas de sus representaciones. Richard, que lo ha hecho en todas, no recordaba ayer cúantas, aunque calcula que en torno al medio centenar. Todos ellos destacaron la ingente labor de experimentación que realizaron junto a Nono antes de que éste falleciera.
* Este articulo apareció en la edición impresa del Martes, 3 de junio de 2003
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Prometeo (Prometheus) is a 150-minute opera by Luigi Nono, written between 1981 and 1984 and revised in 1985. Here the word "opera" carries the generic Italian meaning of "work," as in work of art, and not its usual meaning. Indeed, Nono scornfully labels Prometeo a "tragedia dell'ascolto", a tragedy of listening.
Objectively it can be considered a sequence of nine cantatas, the longest lasting 23 minutes. The Italian libretto, by Massimo Cacciari, selects from texts by such varied authors as Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin and Rainer Maria Rilke and presents the different versions of the myth of Prometheus without telling any version literally.
Vocal and orchestral forces
Prometeo in its final form (1985) is scored for
5 vocal soloists (2 sopranos, 2 altos, 1 tenor)
2 speakers (one male, one female)
choir (12 singers)
4 orchestral groups, each consisting of: flute/piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, 4 violins, viola, cello, double bass
7 glasses
6 instrumental soloists: bass flute/piccolo/C flute, contrabass clarinet/clarinet in B♭/clarinet in E♭, trombone/tuba/euphonium, viola, cello, double bass
2 conductors. Sounds from the vocalists and instrumentalists are electronically manipulated.
Nine sections
The work's nine sections are:
Prologo
Isola Prima
Isola Seconda
Interludio Primo
Tre Voci (a)
Isola Terza — Quarta — Quinta
Tre Voci (b)
Interludio Secondo
Stasimo Secondo
Performance history
At the premiere of the first version, at the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice on September 25, 1984, Claudio Abbado was the conductor, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, a choir from the Freiburg Conservatorium, and the following vocal soloists: Ingrid Ade, Monika Bair-Ivenz, Bernadette Manca di Nissa, Susanne Otto, and Mario Bolognesi. It is not clear whether a Conductor II was deployed. The revised and final Prometeo premiered at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on September 25, 1985. Nono banned all photography of the production in an attempt to stop what he called "artistic consumerism."
Prometeo was presented as part of the Berliner Festspiele in September 2011 under Matilda Hofman (Conductor II) and Arturo Tamayo (Conductor I); Cyndia Sieden, Silke Evers, Susanne Otto, Noa Frenkel, and Hubert Mayer were the vocal soloists, with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Its American premiere took place at Argentina's Teatro Colón, in November 2013.
Recordings
EMI Classics 5 55209 2 - 1993, live in Salzburg: Ingrid Ade-Jesemann, Monika Bair-Ivenz, Susanne Otto, Helena Rasker, Peter Hall; Solistenchor Freiburg; Ensemble Modern; Ingo Metzmacher, conductor
Col Legno WWE2SACD20605 - 2003, live in Freiburg: Petra Hoffmann, Monika Bair-Ivenz, Susanne Otto, Noa Frenkel, Hubert Mayer, singers; Sigrun Schell, Gregor Dalal (speakers); Freiburg Soloists’ Choir, ensemble recherche, Soloists’ Ensembles of the Freiburg Philharmonic and SWR Symphony Orchestras, Experimentalstudio Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung of the SWR Freiburg (André Richard, director); Peter Hirsch (1st conductor), Kwamé Ryan (2nd conductor)
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Nono Prometeo. Critica de la Revista Gramophone
Composer or Director:
Luigi Nono
Label:
EMI
Magazine Review Date:
12/1995
Catalogue Number:
555209-2
Prometeo
Luigi Nono Composer
Ingrid Ade-Jesemann (sop)
Monika Bair-Ivenz (sop)
Peter Hall (ten)
Ingo Metzmacher Conductor
Freiburg Soloists Choir
Ensemble Modern
Author:
Michael Oliver
Prometeo is a challenge to the faculty of listening; at least part of the meaning of its subtitle, ''tragedia dell'ascolto'', is that it is a tragedy to be perceived through the hearing only. It is a two-and-a-quarter-hour opera without staging or action, in which few if any of the words are intended to be distinguishable and whose dynamic level is often at the very limit of audibility. I was about to add ''and proceeds at a tempo of adagissimo almost throughout'', but even when, as often happens, the basic tempo is very slow indeed there are often two or more musics of different degrees of slowness going on at once, thus colour, texture and harmony change more rapidly than pulse. The effect, even so, is of a very long piece of very slow, very quiet music.
It is in nine sections; two of them give a clear indication of Nono's intentions. The fourth, Interludio primo, is for solo contralto, flute, clarinet and tuba, the instruments mostly doubling the voice, so that the whole piece can be heard as a monody in which the function of the instruments is to 'colour' the voice expressively. The text hints, with the aid of a single line from Hesiod's Theogony, at a vision of a new Prometheus. It was Nono's intention, I suspect, that having previously read the text (it is very short) we should perceive its meaning through the music alone. It is like a sort of ritual 'still centre' to the entire piece, inviting you to suspend your sense of time and listen to every change of pitch and timbre with an unaccustomed intensity: the musicians are instructed never to rise above ppppp, and in this performance they are admirably faithful to that instruction.
A different kind of challenge is posed by the sixth section, in which three very fragmentary 'movements', each for a different vocal and instrumental combination, are played simultaneously, punctuated by a separate chorus intoning six 'distant memories' from the Prologue. This time you will need the texts in front of you, since there are not three but seven of them and here they have fused with the music, as the voice and the instruments fused in Intermedio primo. The effort of hearing and making sense of three different, intermittent musical strands is great but already on a limited acquaintance I am aware of a strange poetry, a grave beauty.
One of the reasons for this is the extraordinary care with which Nono planned every aspect of what he called his 'acoustic dramaturgy', including its complex yet subtle electronic transformations. The setting of Holderlin interpolated into the third section of Prometeo, for example, is scored for two sopranos, two speakers, bass flute and contrabass clarinet, but the effect is not only of a hushed chorus, but of a chorus who magically move in space and recede from you as you listen: like many pages in this work it is a strange, beautiful ceremony.
The performance maintains a remarkable control over this huge span of hushed concentration. The recording, too, is exceptional, revealing gradations of quietness that I have rarely before been asked to perceive. Or has my hearing been sharpened by the experience? For that alone it would repay the extreme demands it makes of the listener, but its challenging redefinition of how music may encompass myth and drama (oh yes: you are aware of a compelling drama taking place, one which only your ears can interpret) is even more provoking.'
En la imagen Luigi Nono y su esposa Nuria Schoenberg.
Estrenada el 25 de Septiembre de 1984.
Nono nació el 29 de enero de 1924 y murió el 8 de mayo de 1990.
